Clinical Clogher move clear at the top

The occasion of this Ulster derby was given extra significance by the attendance of Ulster Branch President, Denis Gardiner, and Chairman of Domestic Rugby, Greg Irwin at both the game and its pre-match lunch.

Although under no illusions as to the magnitude of the task ahead of them, Bangor took to the field knowing that in their previous meeting with Clogher at the Cran, they had pushed the league leaders hard, with the game just slipping away from them in the closing stages. For Clogher Valley’s part, they were in the midst of a close tussle at the top of the table, and were hoping to pick up maximum points to consolidate their position.

With no wind advantage for either side, Bangor kicked off and, in similar form to recent games, started positively and took early control of play. In fact, in the opening 15 minutes, it was Bangor who had the possession, control in the set pieces, and territorial advantage, and were unlucky not to take the lead from a narrowly missed penalty attempt. However, appearances can so often be deceptive and, from a scrum inside their own half, Clogher Valley brought their dangerous back line into action. The ball was moved with pace and accuracy to their winger who ran around Bangor’s defensive line before offloading to support players who finished off the move with a well-taken try, albeit somewhat against the run of early play.

Despite this setback, Bangor’s confidence was still high and within minutes were back on level terms following a break by Craig Gilroy which was then taken on by Connor Scollan who sprinted down the left hand touchline to score in the corner.

With the backs from both sides having made their mark so far, it was now the turn of the forwards to get in on the act. In the early exchanges, it was Bangor who had the upper hand in the set pieces but had been unable to make their power count when in sight of the Clogher goal line. By contrast, Clogher took their opportunity when it counted, and recorded their second try following several forward drives close to Bangor’s posts, and regain the lead by 5-12.

Bangor looked to be ready to produce another scoring reply, as they laid siege to the Clogher line and were rewarded with a 5 metre scrum in front of the Clogher posts. Opting not to use the scrum to drive towards the line, Bangor got the ball back and started to move it across their backs, only for a loose pass to be intercepted by the Clogher defence. If that wasn’t bad enough, the speed of Clogher’s counter attack found Bangor wanting and, following a 70 metre sprint, they touched down under Bangor’s posts for another converted try which stretched their lead to 5-19, and this is how it remained until half time.

As the second half got underway, Clogher Valley picked up where they left off and after just 10 minutes had secured their bonus point try from a straightforward scrum and forward drive. Not long afterwards they all but confirmed their victory with another try where they simply outpaced the Bangor defence, to put them well clear by 5-29, and just a quarter of the game left to play.

Bangor managed to restore some pride with a Ryan McCarroll try following a rolling maul, and a superb touchline conversion from Mark Widdowson, but in the end this was not enough to make any telling difference, and they could only reflect on the final 12-29 scoreline.
While this was undoubtedly a convincing win for Clogher Valley, the home supporters felt that the final score didn’t fully reflect the lengthy periods of quality rugby played by Bangor. There is plenty of point-scoring talent in the Bangor squad and, with their next testing fixture away at Galwegians, they will be hoping to improve on their narrow defeat when the two sides met earlier in the season.

On a more positive note from around the other sections of the Club, the 3rd XV recorded a convincing 39-14 bonus point win against Carrick during the week, made all the more note-worthy by the fact that nine of the starting fifteen were players who had just moved up from the youth ranks. As for the youth teams themselves, both the U16s and U18s had tricky cup fixtures against Rainey who play in a different league to Bangor. The U16s came through by 22-14 after a slow start, and the U18s fought back to tie their game at 17-17. However, with no replay scheduled, the result goes to Bangor who not only scored first, but also scored more tries than their opponents. With such a rich pipeline of young talent coming through, there is certainly much to look forward to across the club in the seasons ahead.